


Cataract

by GloryBox



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Post Fury Road, Torture Mentions, injuries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-17 03:44:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5852716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloryBox/pseuds/GloryBox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Fool returns with bad injuries and worse news.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Finding

**Author's Note:**

> I've had writers block for weeks but I think the wheels are finally starting to turn once again. Anyways, this first chapter mentions torture and a lot of blood and injuries, so if that's bothersome to you...avoid this.

She should've known it would be an odd day when she woke up late.  She got out of bed, her neck and knees cracking as she got up and stretched, her muscles feeling strained and sore from the long run from Barter Town.  She strapped on her prosthesis, pulled on her boots and wandered out of her room down to the vault where the sisters slept.  The only one that was there now was the Dag and her nameless toddler.  The Dag was a firm believer, despite the constant criticism from Milking Mothers, ex-secondary breeders and the remaining Vuvalini, that her child should pick her own name.  

“You gotta give her a name!”  Toast had said a few months ago. Furiosa had been eating on a bench in the Vault, listening to the banter between the sisters.  It was a refreshing change from war boy banter, which tended to be about the “chrome” things they’ve done and their dicks.  

“When she’s old enough she can name herself whatever the fuck she wants.”  

“If you don’t stop cursing like that in front of her she’s gonna name herself “Fuck".”  Toast retorted and Furiosa almost choked on her soup, the first reaction to humor they’d seen from her since they had returned.  The Dag had smiled wryly, adjusting the toddler on her hip, amused at Furiosa’s reaction.  

“Well, if that’s what she wants to call herself then so be it.”

Everyone had a different name for the chubby toddler with her mother’s fine hair and pale eyes, her tiny smile filled with tiny baby teeth endeared everyone.  Even grizzled old Ace would chuckle at her when she whispered some odd nonsense in his ear.  Toast called her Dag II, Capable and Cheedo called her Baby, Furiosa called her Kid (though in her head she called her “Small Dag”)

Furiosa walked in as the Dag was hoisting her baby up on her hip.  

“Good morning Lady Fury.”  Dag greeted, affectionate tickling her daughter’s cheek, Small Dag giggling and playfully jerked away, a huge smile on her face.  

“Why didn’t anyone wake me up?”  Furiosa asked, pleased that she sounded as cranky as she felt.  Dag huffed and rolled her eyes.  

“You guys got back so late, you obviously needed the sleep, which apparently wasn’t sufficient anyways.”    

Furiosa blew some air through her nose, eyeing Small Dag as the child watched her.  

“You should come up to the Green with us, take a nap in one of those long chairs.”  

“Its lounge chair, and I have work to do.”  

“It’s long, and I need someone to watch this ankle biter, that’s work innit?”  

Furiosa was about to say no but Small Dag was smiling at her, she had a headache forming and the loud garages suddenly seemed extremely unappealing. Furiosa heaved a sigh.  

“Alright, but just for a little while.”

They walked side by side as they ascended to the gardens, Small Dag babbling nonsense to her mother.

“I think you should talk to Capable, she’s really worried about Threx.”   

“He still hasn’t shown up?”  

The Dag shook her head and Furiosa clenched her jaw, a bad feeling forming in her gut.  A war boy went missing from his scouting party the day before, went over a dune to piss and he never came back.  They couldn’t find a single trace of where he went.  It was...odd.    

They finally made it up in the gardens, high above the Citadel.  The Dags daughter held her mechanical hand, her tiny hand wrapped around one of the metal fingers as she walked her through the rows of green, sunlight filtering through the leaves of the trees.  Furiosa didn’t really like child care, or children really, she grew bored of the painfully slow pace she had to go so the baby could keep up.  But she liked Small Dag, the toddler was sweet and liked to whisper odd observations in people's ears, a smile always on her face.  

She was well loved, Milk Mothers, the Sisters, the Vuvalini and even a few war boys (the Dag had been a bit liberal with who she handed her baby to when she was first born, still ambivalent about motherhood) and now Furiosa, all seemed to be willing to dote on her.  

They finally ended up in a soft patch and Furiosa sat on the lounge chair (it was a Citadel wide dispute, on whether it was called lounge chair or long chair, though the Vuvalini said it was Lawn Chair, but that didn't make any sense.  What the hell was a lawn?).  Furiosa sprawled out, Small Dag next to her in the grass, talking to herself in the soft voice that children have.  Furiosa was dozing, secretly thinking that the Dag was right, she did need more sleep, when she heard footsteps.  She cracked open an eye and the relaxed nature of the last hour drained out of her the millisecond she spotted a war pup barreling at them.  

“Furiosa!”  He called out, rushing towards her when his feet shot out from underneath him and he fell on his back and slid a foot or two in the damp grass.  Furiosa stared at him with raised eyebrows as he shot back up, out of breath.  

“Toast says to get the infirmary, they found Max and he’s hurt really bad!”  

Furiosa was momentarily stunned.  Her first thought when she saw the pup was that something had happened to Toast, who went out scouting and on patrols, so she had already been anxious.  Then the news that it was _Max_ was so out of the blue it took her a moment to process before acting.  She gave mini Dag back to _the_ Dag and quickly followed the pup down from the Green, her mind reeling.  

She was pretty content that she hadn’t spent too much time thinking about the Fool, her thoughts too occupied with running the Citadel to dwell on the mysterious man who had helped them.  

On some nights though, she’d go up to the gardens and gaze at the stars and remember the last run on Fury Road.  She’d think of the Fool sitting quietly next to her in the rig, his low rumbly voice, _Hope is a mistake...if you can’t fix what’s broken..You’ll go insane_ .  She would remember his eyes, unique to him yet so similar to hers, filled with a thousand stories.  A lifetime of horrors.  She’d think of the way he held her head so gently, the way he said _hey_ as if she was just waking up from a nap when she was dying in the back of the Gigahorse.  How his blood ran in her veins.   

But she had come to terms with the fact that he would probably never come back and the news of his turbulent return left her feeling...she wasn't sure, a mix of excitement and anxiety.   

The infirmary was mostly empty as of late, rarely were there any severe injuries anymore, the remaining occupants were mostly war boys at the end of their half lives.  So when she arrived and saw a swarm of people surrounding one of the metal tables her heart fluttered nervously. She stood a few yards away from it all for a moment and she jumped when one of the war boy helpers pushed past her with a volunteer blood bag.  

Furiosa took a deep breath and took slow steps towards the group, her stomach knotting at the sight.  They were cutting off his already shredded, blood soaked shirt.  Her eyes went to his face, which had a wide streak of blood that had flowed down from his hairline the way the water flowed down the rocks, over half his face covered in crimson.  His eyes were shut, one was swollen, his nose looked broken, his lip was split.  He was deathly pale and she could only stare when they hooked up the volunteer blood bag, his head lolling as they shifted his limp form around.  

Janie, one of the two remaining Vuvalini, was checking his eyes, pulling each eyelid open one at a time to shine a light in.  They had fashioned special lights just for checking eyes by molding funnels around the top of flashlights, the light constricted to the small hole at the end of the funnel.  Janie looked up at her, noticing her for the first time.  

“He’s been shot, but he has a lot of other injuries that need to be cleaned and stitched too.”  

Janie and Cheedo seemed focused on the bullet wound, just below his collarbone, which had apparently gone all the way through.  But when Furiosa took another step forward, she could see the array of other...injuries.  

She stood with one of the other helpers and cleaned the deliberate cuts, carved into his abdomen, chest and arms. Some of the lacerations were incredibly straight almost surgical looking while others were deliberate waves.  Some went deep, some looked like symbols.  She grimly stitched a particularly long set of lacerations, 3 long lines that started below his ribs and ended by his hip.   

Where there weren't cuts, there were burns.  She guessed they were from someone holding a hot poker to his skin, and she helped apply salve and gauze on them after they got most of his cuts stitched.  It was like every time they identified a injury, then would find another one.  Furiosa began to simmer.  

She cleaned his hand which was missing most of his fingernails and left one of the helpers to wrap his finger tips.  His wrists were raw and gory, massive bruises bloomed up both sides of his ribs, solid blots of dark red and purple.  There was a raw, red bruised line on his throat, like someone had him in a noose.  One arm was dislocated that Cheedo reset and put in a sling and one of the helpers had to shave away some of his hair so they could stitch the gash, the source of most of the blood on his face.  His leg brace was missing, but there were few lacerations on his legs compared to the rest of his body.  

“Who did this to him?”  She asked quietly, Toast was looming next to her, helping when asked.  She spent most of her time either in the garages or on patrols, but she had learned a few useful tricks during a quick stint as an apprentice in the infirmary.  

“Don’t know, we found him just outside the territory in a car empty of guzzaline.  We towed it back but it’s beat to hell.”  She said.  

“Was he awake…”

“Yea, we startled him, I don’t think he noticed we were near until I was a few yards away.  I thought he was going to shoot me but he passed out.”  Toast left out the part with the stand down, her looking down the barrel of his sawed off shotgun that rested on the window.  She left out how wide his eyes were in fear, one clear blue in the light, the blood glistening on his cheek and forehead.  How his eyes rolled back into his head and the shotgun dropped to the ground.  How his limp arm hung out the window, blood dripping from his fingertips.  

They had to bribe a second volunteer blood bag to come in, Furiosa watched as Cheedo kept on holding a small broken piece of mirror over his mouth, making sure he was still breathing when his slow breaths fogged up the glass.  

They flipped him on his stomach, freshly stitched, so they could stitch the entrance wound of the bullet hole and the series of other burns and cuts.  There was a brief pause as they collectively took in his blood bag tattoos before wordlessly continuing cleaning and stitching.  Furiosa thought he'd be pleased to know that most of the words were illegible now.  After the second blood bag gave as much as they could, they start an IV solution.  Lastly they wrap his ribs and after what felt like hours they finally finish and move him to a bed.  

Janie tiredly started to clean up, Cheedo trailing behind her, but paused and glanced at Furiosa.  

“Need someone to watch him for a few minutes, you mind?”  Janie asked and Furiosa found herself nodding without thinking.  The helpers filtered out and away to other patients, and soon it was just Furiosa and Cheedo on either side of the bed, sitting up by his head.  He looked awful, deathly pale with a chunk of his hair shaved off, blood all over his face most of his body.  He looked like a corpse.  

Furiosa watched numbly as Cheedo gently started dabbing away the dried blood from his forehead with a wet rag.  Furiosa was intimately familiar with Cheedo’s tenacity for doting, her weeks of recovery after Fury Road were quite possibly the high point of Cheedo’s young life.  

She watched as Cheedo became increasingly gentle as she dabbed away the blood from his recently reset nose, his swollen eye, the corner of his mouth.  Cheedo shot her a darting glance before dunking the rag in a bowl if water.  

“I think we should shave the rest of his head so he doesn’t look so ridiculous.”  She said.  Furiosa nodded, agreeing, the one spot that had been shaved looked awful, the stitches raised and gory looking.  Cheedo glanced at her again.  “I think he’s gonna be okay.”  

“Hm?”  

“He’s gonna pull through, I think.”  Cheedo said calmly.  Furiosa blinked.  Cheedo was so different from the scared girl she met in the vault, hiding behind the Dag and her curtain of long dark hair.  Since their return from the run on Fury Road, she had taken to following Janie around the infirmary, and seemed to genuinely enjoy working there.  She liked taking care of people, and she was good at it.  

“You think so?”  Furiosa asked softly, eyeing him skeptically.  He was just so...hurt… and in so many ways.  

Cheedo nodded, scrubbing the last of the blood out of the scruff on his jaw.  Furiosa copied Cheedo's earlier actions and continually held the piece of mirror over his slightly parted lips, watching the glass slowly fog up.  

Her eyes wandered back down to his hands, where the nails had been ripped out, the bloody nail beds cleaned and the tips of his fingers bandaged.  

“Someone tortured him.”  Furiosa said quietly.  Cheedo’s eyes flickered to her.  

“Who?”  

“Don’t know.”  She answered lowly, churning over possible enemies that might of done this to him.  Buzzards, rock raiders, maybe someone from Gas Town?  Or Barter Town?  Who had he pissed off?  Or was he just unlucky?  Cheedo stood abruptly and Furiosa looked up at her in question.  

“Gotta get new water.”  She said, the water having turned rose colored.  She walked briskly to the back room and Furiosa was alone with him.  She sighed deeply and folded both her flesh and metal arm on the bed, resting her chin on the crook of her elbow of her half arm.  She slowly raised her flesh hand and ever so gently ran it through Max’s short hair.   _Maybe they didn't have him long_ , she thought, _if his hair is still short, his scruff hasn't even grown in enough to be a beard_.  Maybe he hadn't suffered long.  

 _Of course he did._   She snapped inwardly at herself.  Someone still took their time carving whatever they wanted in his skin, still burned him and ripped out his finger nails and beat him.  Someone made sure he suffered, made sure he hurt.   _And for what?_  She wondered.  

“Oh Fool.”  She murmured quietly, gently carding her fingers through his hair.   _"_ Who did this to you? _"_

 


	2. The Brand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long to update, i usually have a song that inspires fics and i just listen to it all day at work until a plot comes to mind and i go from there. This unfortunately is just being pulled out of the pits of my sad little imagination so its taking longer to come together.  
> Also sorry this is really short

**4 Days Before**

 

He woke with a gasp, fleeting images of blood and the dead still fresh behind his eyes.  His hand was already on the pistol by his hip, automatically curling his finger around the trigger, his entire body stock still in the driver’s seat of his car.  His ragged breathing was the only sound in the dark vehicle, the night encompassed everything around him in black or midnight blue.  He cautiously peered out his window before opening the door, the creak sounding audaciously loud in the dead silence of the night.  

He slowly stepped out, grimacing when he put weight on his bad knee, subconsciously rubbing it for a moment, squinting into the dark.  He listened for a moment to the deafening silence of the wasteland at night, almost hoping to hear the distant rumble of engines, so that way he’d _know_ that there was something out there.  There was no knowing in silence.  

Finally he walked around to the front of his car, parked on top of a dune and sat on the hood.  He fiddled with his brace for a moment before looking up directly above him to the wash of phthalo blue, stars glittering across the sky, light dimly reflecting in his eyes.  

“ _Mama, how’d the stars get up there?”_  He remembered Glory asking her mother the night they reunited.  It wasn’t a demanding question, or even one of wonder but one of wanting to prolong the moment of closeness, perhaps knowing that it would end very soon.  He had been packing up his car, getting ready to leave them but slowed down, interested in the answer.  

“ _Well, someone took a handful of stardust,”_ her mother cupped a handful of wasteland sand, _“and did this,”_  then gently blew the sand off her palm, a breeze immediately carrying it away.  At the time he had been a little stunned by the imagination of the answer, how untainted it was.  He remembered briefly pausing his packing before continuing, mulling her answer over in his mind, tucking it away for safekeeping.    

Now he imagined taking a handful of wasteland dirt, blowing it into the sky and creating the stars.  Creating something that couldn't be ruined, that didn't hurt anyone.  It was a nice, peaceful thought that combated the typical chaos in his mind and he sat like that for a few minutes, his expression momentarily tranquil. 

He spent the rest of the night adjusting his leg brace, and was pleased when the adjustment seemed to actually feel better.  After that he spent the early morning hours loading magazines with bullets, poking at his little but detailed cloth map, stitching a recent cut in his jacket.  

When the sun peeked over the horizon he could _feel_ the lack of sleep in his eyes, the bags that must surely be there.  This was the third night of almost no sleep, he had gotten a few hours before the nightmares woke him, but that was it.  He rubbed his hand over his face, working his jaw.

 _Need to shave, or they won’t recognize you,_  he told himself, mouthing twisting as he rubbed his palm over the bristly hairs on his chin.  

It wasn’t the first time he had convinced himself to go back to the Citadel, he had circled back a number of times over the last three years but always lost his nerve at the last second.  He’d talk himself out of it, or the sighting of a patrol vehicle would inflict some incomprehensible terror that would send him shooting back across the border into the wastes where no one knew him.  

But this time, he told himself, he was gonna do it.  

Once the sun was a little higher he tried to shave using as little water as possible, eyeing himself in the dirty, broken side view mirror of his car and then blindly took a chance with his hair, sawing away filthy, shoulder length locks.  When he was done he ran his hand through his hair, uneven but as good as it was going to get and started the final leg of his trek back to the Citadel.  

 

 

The day was slow, the relentless sun beating down on the Interceptor as he watched the fuel gauge drop lower and lower.   _Now,_ he reasoned, _there’s no choice._   He _had_ to go to the Citadel, or he was going to run out of guzzaline before he could get anywhere else.  His stomach growled while he drove, then he finished the last of his water rations by midday, more reasons to return.  He drove at a steady pace, unperturbed for the bulk of his journey.  Then in late in the afternoon, just outside Citadel Citadel territory, things abruptly came to a stop.  

It happened so suddenly that he didn’t realize what was going on until it was over.  He was driving, as he had been all day, sand dune after sand dune rolling around him, when his car took a jarring nosedive into a camouflaged pit.  He hadn’t been going fast enough to flip his car back over the top, just have the back end hit the opposite side of the trench, the trunk area coming to rest against the edge of the ravine.

The car stilled, dust clouding around the Interceptor, once again silent except for his shaky breaths, then the creak of the door as it fell open.  He staggered out, coughing in all the loosened dust.  He squinted, looking up, hand subconsciously on his belly where the steering wheel had pressed into when the car fell, eyeing the opening the of the pit.  The pit was only a few feet taller than him, so he was able to climb out, grumbling to himself in annoyance.  Once clear he stood up and turned around to surveyed the situation. 

The car...wasn’t coming out, someone was going to have to tow it.  He ran his hand through his recently cut hair, shaking some dust out of it.  Was this a Citadel trap? Or...

The sound of engines jumped him, he twisted around, his hand flying to the gun holstered on his thigh.  A truck and a bike rolling from the opposite direction he had come from in the wastes slowly approached.  His heart rattled in his chest, shaky breaths quickening, eyes darting back to the pit, thinking about jumping back in but they already spotted him.  

Max tensed as they approached, ready to duck or jump in case they decided to shoot him but a friendly hand waved out the passenger window as the truck pulled up.  

“Saw you go down, need some help mate?”  A young man asked, possessing a manic energy that reminded him of Nux.  Kind of looked like him too, pale and strange.  Max tore his eyes from the boy and eyed the bike suspiciously as it pulled up next to the truck, he could see a holstered gun by the handle bars, rider female with two long dark braids falling over her shoulders.  

Max shook his head.   

“Nonsense mate, we’ll getcha out.”  The boy said, and climbed out the truck.  The girl on the bike, no older than the wives, pushed up her goggles, revealing a shock of blue eyes against dark olive skin.  She watched him carefully, frayed baby hairs around her hairline blowing softly in the breeze.  She had an unsettling, piercing gaze, like she could see right through-   

 _“She can see us.”_  Glory hissed in his ear and he startled.  The girl’s hand flinched to the gun by her handle bars, but froze, narrowing her eyes.

Max was as tense as a board while the boy walked around the back of his truck, fingers twitching on the gun on his thigh while the girl glowered at him, watching him like a hawk.  

“My name's Bones, this is Blitz,”  The boy said, coming back with a chain, the driver of the car stepping out.  Blitz was tall and lanky, skin dark brown, black eyes sharp and cool as he nodded shortly at Max.  

“We’re heading towards the Citadel, heard they got all sorts of shine stuff, food, water.  They’ll let you live there if you can work.”  Bones drawled as he wrapped the chain around something under the Interceptor's bumper, Blitz hooking the chain up to his own vehicle.  “That where you headin?”  Bones asked Max as Blitz climbed back into the truck.  

 _“He’s fishing for something.”_  Keeper of the Seed warned him but he didn’t jump this time.  Max shook his head, shoulders beginning to hunch.  Bones narrowed his eyes, walking up to Max, the sound of the trucks straining engine roaring as Blitz began to pull the Interceptor out of the ditch.  

Max had shifted to watch Bones and Blitz connect the chain but now the nameless girl was to his back and he could feel her eyes burning holes in the back of his neck, the brand concealed by his jacket tingling.  

“Where you going then?  Looks like right where you were heading?”  Bones asked, stepping a little too close.  Then he stopped, eyes dropping to Max’s chest.  “S' a nice jacket mate.”   

If Max’s car wasn’t still halfway in a ditch, he could have struck then, but he froze, knowing it would be fruitless, that the girl would just shoot him before he got anything done. 

_Wait till the cars out..._

“You ever been to the Citadel?”  Bones asked and Max shook his head, jaw clenched and eyes hard.  Blitz finished pulling Max’s car out.  

“Well...that’s a shame.”  Bones said, cocking his head with frown.  Max’s eyes darted to the Interceptor then back to Bones, the friendly demeanor had vanished, replaced by a tense anticipation.  Bones twisted around to see Blitz jump out of the truck, walking past where the chain connected the cars towards them.  

_Now..._

Bones turned back to Max, something like empathy in his eyes and a gun cocked behind Max.  He glowered at Bones, jaw working and Bones nervously took a step back.  

_Too late._

He heard the girl step off the bike, feet almost silent as she shifted on the dirt.  

“Hands up.  Don't move.”  She ordered, her voice low and cool and clear like water.  Max grudgingly lifted his arms and Bones quickly snatched Max's gun out of its holster, fumbling with it before pointing at his head.  Blitz approached, and circled behind him, Max so tense it emanated from him, his heart pounding in his chest, he was almost shaking when Blitz yanked down the collar of his jacket.  

"Citadel Brand.  He comes back with us."  

Then one of them cuffed him over the head with the bottom of a gun and everything was black.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so the glory bit is a little off, im pretty sure they met back up during the day (the comic is really really sad???? like i knew she died but the whole scene was so sad???)

**Author's Note:**

> I probably lost my writers block cause I have a mountain of homework and I always seem to get suddenly inspired to write fics when an ominous workload of blackboard discussions, quizzes and essays threaten my procrastinator way of life


End file.
